Raise the Hammer

I received the exact same response from him to my letter, and I sent the following: . . . . . . .

Where do I even start?

"One minute gain for transit users five minutes delay for car commuters. Hardly an argument to justify maintaining a bus lane."

Translation, transit users are not important, you want to take away even this tiny improvement rather than try to enhance it.

"The same staff that wrote the report will not support one conversions to two way"

Red herring - has nothing to do with this discussion.

"So you see my remarks where not critical of the staff's integrity or professionalism it was on objectivity."

Meaning you don't believe that they took all evidence into acccount, meaning you accuse them of not doing their job properly. Why ask transit staff to do anything at all if you aren't going to trust their work? You might as well fire them then.

"The facts are accidents are up"

Wrong. THe long term stats show they are not higher than average and the 2014 jump was mirrored on other streets and likely due to the insanely bad winter. How many buses caused an accident in the TOL? SHow us the data.

"cars are delayed 5 minutes longer"

Only partially true - only durinng a short window on weekdays and a situation easily fixed by installing one traffic signal.

"parking revenue is down by 60%"

Only on one small stretch, staff report said it might be due to payment terminals, and besides also easily fixed by reinstalling north curb parking.

"majority of business on that corridor do not support it"

Evidence please, I have seen letters of support from businesses but no official letters against it

"staff have stated that we are just over half of what is needed to justify a bus lane according to best practices,( 1180 people per peak out vrs 2000 per peak hr)"

Staff says the lane is working and needs to be longer. So you only listen to the parts you want to hear?

"clearly understood that a majority of residents did not support the bus lane"

Evidence please?

"A recent poll reaffirms that the majority of the population of Hamilton does not support the bus lane at this time. "

Not true. Flawed numbers. See analysis here

"My position was to take a step back"

This is the problem Your position is always to take a step back. We need to take a step forward

Why in any sane universe we would spend 100 grand to remove these lanes to think about it and then spend money again to install them correctly?? Fix them now! You would have us throw away the 300 grand on installation and throw anbother 100 grand step back, study more and then spend another 400-500 grand later to do it again "the right way"?

All for a 5 minute delay - that can be solved with one traffic signal.

This is insanity.

Comment edited by seancb on 2015-01-21 15:55:14